1. Single-neuron activity was recorded from the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) of Macaca mulatta monkeys while they were performing delayed saccades and related tasks. Temporal characteristics of this activity were presented in the companion paper. Here we focus on the spatial characteristics of the activity. The analysis was based on recordings from 145 neurons. All these neurons were from the lateral intraparietal area (LIP), a recently defined subdivision of the IPL. 2. Delayed saccades were made in eight directions. Direction-tuning curves were calculated for each neuron, during each of the following activity phases that were described in the companion paper: light sensitive (LS), delay-period memory (M), and saccade related (S); the latter further partitioned into presaccadic (Pre-S), saccade coincident (S-Co), and postsaccadic (Post-S). 3. Width and preferred direction were calculated for each direction-tuning curve. We studied the distributions of widths and preferred directions in LIP's neuronal population. In each case we included only neurons that showed clear excitatory activity in the phases in question. 4. Width was defined as the angle over which the response was higher than 50% of its maximal net value. Width distributions were similar for all phases studied. Widths varied widely from neuron to neuron, from very narrow (less than 45 degrees) to very wide (close to 360 degrees). Median widths were approximately 90 degrees in all phases. 5. Preferred-direction distributions were also similar for various phases. All directions were represented in each distribution, but contralateral directions were more frequent (e.g., 69% for S-Co). 6. For each neuron the alignment of the preferred directions of its various phases was determined. Distributions of alignments were calculated (again, phases that were not clearly excitatory were disregarded). On the level of the neuronal population LS, M, and Pre-S were well aligned with each other. S-Co was also aligned with these phases, but less precisely. 7. A set of "narrowly tuned" neurons was selected by imposing a constraint of narrow (width, less than 90 degrees) LS and S-Co direction tuning. In this set of neurons, the LS and S-Co preferred directions were very well aligned (median, 12 degrees). The fraction of narrowly tuned neurons in the population was 40% (25/63). Thus, in a large subpopulation of area LIP, a fairly precise alignment exists between sensory and motor fields. 8. An additional set of 82 area LIP neurons were recorded while the monkey performed delayed saccades to 32 targets located on small, medium, and large imaginary circles.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


In this paper, a study of optical delay lines based on soliton propagation in coupled resonator optical waveguides is performed. For a given bit rate and required delay, design equations are given that relate the soliton peak power and collision period to the soliton width. To study the influence of higher order linear and nonlinear dispersion, a continuous wave propagation model incorporating these effects is also derived. Using this model, the soliton stability in the presence of higher order dispersion, optical loss and adjacent soliton pulses is numerically verified. It is also shown that soliton-based delay lines can achieve nanosecond delay at a propagation length of a few millimeters due to the high slow down factors that can be obtained.


In Stone Men of Malekula: Vao (1942), a text that was published more than twenty-five years after he carried out long-term fieldwork in Vanuatu, John Layard introduced a new technique for rendering kinship data in diagrammatic form. Inspired in part by Gregory Bateson, his 'circular technique' was derived from diagrams drawn up according to the genealogical method, and was designed to overcome certain structural problems identified within these. One important implication of the 'circular technique' that is not made explicit in Layard's analysis is a resonance with many of the idioms and metaphors that ni-Vanuatu evoke in talking about relationships of exchange and kinship. Where processes of birth, death, marriage and exchange are conceptualised in terms of a broad flow of departures and returns across discernible trajectories, images incorporating circles and spirals are utilised as key metaphors for understanding social relationships through space and time. Focusing on the Raga-speaking district of North Pentecost, Vanuatu, this article explores such idioms while presenting a revision of Layard's circular technique.


Program input syntactic structure is essential for a wide range of applications such as test case generation, software debugging, and network security. However, such important information is often not available (e.g., most malware programs make use of secret protocols to communicate) or not directly usable by machines (e.g., many programs specify their inputs in plain text or other random formats). Furthermore, many programs claim they accept inputs with a published format, but their implementations actually support a subset or a variant. Based on the observations that input structure is manifested by the way input symbols are used during execution and most programs take input with top-down or bottom-up grammars, we devise two dynamic analyses, one for each grammar category. Our evaluation on a set of real-world programs shows that our technique is able to precisely reverse engineer input syntactic structure from execution. We apply our technique to hierarchical delta debugging (HDD) and network protocol reverse engineering. Our technique enables the complete automation of HDD, in which programmers were originally required to provide input grammars, and improves the runtime performance of HDD. Our client study on network protocol reverse engineering also shows that our technique supersedes existing techniques.


The use of sparse neural networks has seen rapid growth in recent years, particularly in computer vision. Their appeal stems largely from the reduced number of parameters required to train and store, as well as in an increase in learning efficiency. Somewhat surprisingly, there have been very few efforts exploring their use in Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). In this work we perform a systematic investigation into applying a number of existing sparse training techniques on a variety of DRL agents and environments. Our results corroborate the findings from sparse training in the computer vision domain - sparse networks perform better than dense networks for the same parameter count - in the DRL domain. We provide detailed analyses on how the various components in DRL are affected by the use of sparse networks and conclude by suggesting promising avenues for improving the effectiveness of sparse training methods, as well as for advancing their use in DRL.


Good dispersion of active catalytic elements, their uniform distribution on the carrier's surface and availability for neutralised combustion gases are key factors that determine the usability of catalyst cartridges for automotive catalytic reactors. By examining the morphology of oxide films, with SEM/STEM method, obtained by oxidation of foil coated with Pt/Al two-layered system (like laminate), where an Al nanofilm is situated between steel foil and a Pt nanofilm, one can observe forked and plate whiskers growing directly of substrate. Oxide films obtained from Pt+Al composite nanofilms were formed differently (where components are intermixed). These films are marked by chaotic, mutually penetrating fine equiaxed solids and whiskers. In case of composite nanofilms the grain system obtained in the course of deposition contributed to good Pt grain refining, and due to that mostly particles from 3 to 9 nm in conventional diameter were formed. Direct contact between Pt particles and Al particles caused the partial occlusion of Pt particles with oxide in the process of Al oxidation to be effected.


Objective: One of the core concerns in psychiatric nursing is job burnout among nurses, because burnout had harmful impacts on both nurses' health and their ability to cope with job demands. Moreover, long term job stress can cause burn out and reduce their level of satisfaction. Aim: The aim of the study was to explore the relationship between burnout aand job satisfactions among psychiatric nurses. Methods: Descriptive correlation design was utilized. The study was conducted at Psychiatric Department in Tanta University Hospital and Tanta Mental Health Hospital. The study sample consisted of 50 staff nurses. Tools were utilized for collection of data: First, the Burnout Inventory by Maslach; Second, the Job Satisfaction scale. It measured the general job satisfaction of the nursing staff. This scale has five domains: Personal factors, Work organization, Content and amount of work, Working unit and Leadership. Results: It was found that the majority of nurses had job dissatisfaction. In relation to staff nurses' burnout, staff nurses' job burnout and its components were found. It was observed that the majority of nurses had high burnout. Regarding burnout components, specifically, in relation to emotional exhaustion, it was found that the majority of nurses experienced high emotional exhaustion and depersonalization compared low accomplishment. It was found that there was significant negative correlation between burnout and job satisfaction, the highest frequency of nurses had high burnout and had low level of job satisfaction. Conclusions: The highest frequency of nurses had high burnout and had low level of job satisfaction. It recommended newly developed interventions to alleviate nurses' burnout and increase job satisfaction, thereby enhancing the quality of healthcare. So, further support of managers in the prevention of burnout is a necessity. Thus, it will enhance creativity, job satisfaction, self-worthiness, and service quality.


Background: Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning has remained a common, serious and often unrecognized event and constitutes a public health problem in Morocco. The objective of this study is to describe the epidemiological and clinical profile and risk factors of CO poisoning in the region of Fez-Boulemane, Morocco. Methods: This is a retrospective study on CO poisoning cases occurred in the region of Fez-Boulemane between January 2009 and December 2012. Data were retrieved from medical records of patients who were admitted to 7 referral hospitals in the study catchment area. The patient's clinical status was classified according to the Poisoning Severity Score. By comparing critical (grade 3 or 4) and non-critical (grade 1 or 2) cases, a univariate analysis was performed to identify the factors associated with life-threatening consequences. Results: During the study period, 2332 cases were included. Most patients were women (68%). The mean (SD) age of patients was 26.4 (16.1) years. Most cases occurred during winter (45.1%). The source of poisoning was water heaters in majority of cases (53%). The most common manifestations were headache in 86%, nausea in 79%, dizziness in 76%, vomiting in 63% and dyspnea in 63% of cases. The majority of patients had grade 2 or grade 1 poisoning severity. Univariate analysis demonstrated that gender (P = 0.03) and the location of event (P = 0.005) had significant impacts on the prognosis while age did not have any influence on the severity of poisoning (P = 0.15). The impact of season of event on the prognosis approached the level of significance but its significance was questionable (P = 0.09). Conclusion: This study showed that CO poisoning is common but probably underestimated in the region. Strengthening the role of the morocco poison control center in the region would be the most effective preventive measure to decrease morbidity and mortality secondary to CO poisoning.


A methodological paradigm has been suggested to address the basic research question of this research: Does the deviance from a minimal goal deal to a higher level of harm inflicted on members of a deviant OG than the deviance from a maximal goal? A number of methodological aspects have been implemented in this experimental paradigm. It is synergetic as different aspects of experimental games in general and the Public Goods Game in particular are used to address a multitude of these aspects: The use of experimental games most importantly ensures a highly controlled experimental environment while allowing at the same time the measurement of actual negative forms of behavior such as punishment and social exclusion. Slight modifications of a Public Goods Game can be used to manipulate participants´ representation of a superordinate goal as either minimal or maximal. The following chapter presents a series of experiments using this experimental paradigm in order to test the impact of a minimal versus a maximal superordinate goal on the infliction of harm on a deviant OG.


Background The development of neutralizing antibodies against factor VIII is a common and serious complication of replacement therapy, occurring mainly in the early stages of treatment. Meta-analyses of observational studies have suggested a higher risk of inhibitor development with concentrates produced by recombinant technologies (rFVIII) than with those derived from human plasma (pdFVIII) containing von Willebrand factor, which was recently confirmed in a randomized trial. In this trial cumulative incidences of inhibitor development were 44.5% for rFVIII and 26.8% for pdFVIII, for a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.87 (95% confidence interval (CI95) 1.17-2.96). Given the particularly high risk with rFVIII , it has been suggested to restrict the use of rFVIII to low risk patients, and treat high-risk patients with pdFVIII. We investigated such a strategy in a post-hoc analysis of the SIPPET study, in which we used the FVIII genotype (F8 gene mutation) to classify patients by prior risk. Methods SIPPET is an open label international randomized trial on which 251 previously untreated (n=142) or minimally treated (less than five exposure to blood components other than concentrate or cryoprecipitate, n=109) in 42 centers to be treated exclusively with a concentrate from the class of rFVIII or pdFVIII. Patients were tested for inhibitors before entry and at regular intervals during 50 exposure days, 3 years or the development of an inhibitor of at least 0.4 Bethesda units (BU). The trial ran from 2010 to 2014 and was terminated when the prespecified number of patients was included. Patients who had not reached 50ED by that time were censored. Patients were classified at high risk when they carried a null mutation (inversion, large deletion, frameshift, nonsense mutation) in the F8 gene and as low risk when they carried another causative variant (missense, splice site, polymorphisms, no mutation). We estimated cumulative incidences, hazard ratios and numbers needed to harm (NNH) for rFVIII vs pdFVIII for high- and low risk patients. Results Among 251 patients, 76 developed an inhibitor (all > 0.7 BU) of which 50 were high- titer (> 5 BU). Among 197 patients classified as high risk, 65 developed an inhibitor (cumulative incidence 38.2%, CI95 30.8-45.6), whereas among the 38 patients classified as low risk 7 developed an inhibitor (cumulative incidence 23.9%, CI95 8.2-39.6). High and low risk patients were equally distributed over the two arms of the trial, i.e., 96 out of 126 treated with rFVIII were high risk, and 101 out of 125 treated with pdFVIII. Among high risk patients, cumulative incidence was 30.7% when treated with pdFVIII , and 46.5% when treated with rFVIII (risk difference 15.8%). Among low risk patients, no inhibitors developed with pdFVIII, whereas the cumulative incidence was 43.2% with rFVIII (risk difference 43.2%). This implies that the Number Needed to Harm was 5.6 overall, 6.3 for high-risk patients, and 2.3 in low risk patients. Conclusion Risk stratification by the type of F8 mutation does not identify previously untreated patients with hemophilia A who have a low inhibitor risk when exposed to rFVIII. Other means need to be found to reduce the occurrence of inhibitors with rFVIII. Disclosures Palla:Pfizer: Other: travel support . Mannucci:NovoNordisk: Speakers Bureau; Kedrion: Speakers Bureau; Grifols: Speakers Bureau; Bayer: Speakers Bureau. Peyvandi:Bayer: Speakers Bureau; SOBI: Speakers Bureau; Kedrion Biopharma: Consultancy, Other: research funding paid to Luigi Villa Foundation, Research Funding; Alexion: Other: research funding paid to Luigi Villa Foundation, Research Funding; Octapharma: Consultancy; Ablynx: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees, Other: research funding paid to Luigi Villa Foundation, Research Funding; Biotest: Other: research funding paid to Luigi Villa Foundation, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; CSL Behring: Speakers Bureau; LFB: Consultancy; Grifols: Speakers Bureau; Novo Nordisk: Other: research funding paid to Luigi Villa Foundation, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau.


Abstract The (110) surfaces of arsenopyrite (FeAsS) and enargite (Cu3AsS4) have been modelled using a Density Functional Theory (DFT) plane-wave pseudopotential method (CASTEP) in order to better understand aspects of the geometric and electronic structures of these minerals, which have important implications for the release of arsenic in acid mine drainage environments. In this study, bulk calculations of these minerals have been conducted to give consistent geometries for surface models and to establish reference states for changes at the surfaces in these models. Surface structure experimental data for enargite were collected using low-energy electron diffraction which confirmed an unreconstructed 1 × 1 (110) lattice, with a and b values of 6.38±0.3 Å and 9.92±0.5 Å, respectively. Surface calculations demonstrate geometric and electronic relaxation of both arsenopyrite and enargite (110) surfaces. Changes in atomic positions, interatomic distances, Mulliken charges and electronic configurations are reported. Enargite has a surface energy of ~0.02 eV/Å2 compared with arsenopyrite which has a surface energy of ~0.11 eV/Å2, indicating that the enargite (110) surface is more energetically stable than that of arsenopyrite. The most stable surfaces are those which relax to restore the surface coordination and partial charge balance. For both minerals this is achieved by the formation of covalent bonds. Arsenic has the most positive Mulliken charge of all the surface atoms and is, therefore, predicted to be the most reactive atom at the arsenopyrite and enargite (110) surfaces. This implies that, according to these calculations, arsenic is most likely to react with oxidative species such as O2 and H2O in environments such as those associated with acid mine drainage, potentially releasing oxides and acids of arsenic into the environment.


Background Hypertension is a major cause of death and disability worldwide. Enhancing health literacy (HL) may help to alleviate the risk of hypertension and its burden. However, evidence on the association between HL and hypertension and potential mechanisms remain to be explored. Objectives This study examined the association between HL and hypertension; and explored whether body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage (PBF), and visceral fat (VF) were mediators of this association in people who resided in rural and suburban areas in Vietnam. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted from 1st July to 31st December 2019, involving 1655 residents and exploring participants' sociodemographic characteristics, HL, health-related behaviors, comorbidities, body composition, and blood pressure (BP). People with systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg or using antihypertensive medication were classified as having hypertension. Multiple logistic regression and mediation analyses were used to explore associations. Results The hypertension prevalence was 41.9% (694/1,655). In adjusted models, a higher HL score was associated with a lower hypertension likelihood (OR = 0.96; 95%CI = 0.95–0.97; p < 0.001). Factors associated with a higher odd of hypertension were overweight/obese (OR = 1.69; 95%CI = 1.24–2.29; p = 0.001), high PBF (OR = 2.35; 95%CI = 1.85–2.99; p < 0.001), and high VF (OR = 2.27; 95%CI = 1.63–3.16; p < 0.001). Notably, PBF significantly mediated the association between HL and hypertension (indirect effect, OR = 0.99; 95%CI = 0.98–0.99; p = 0.009; percent mediated = 8.56%). The mediating roles of BMI and VF were not found. Conclusion The prevalence of hypertension was relatively high. People with better HL were less likely to have hypertension. The association between HL and hypertension was partially explained by PBF. Strategic approaches are required to improve people's HL and body fat which further help to manage hypertension in rural and suburban areas.


Purpose: Using the evidence of Chinese outbound mergers and acquisitions (M&As) enacted between 2006 and 2014, this study aims to investigate the role played by home political connections on the cost implications of Chinese multinationals. It also examines whether home political connections – at different levels and of different configurations – impact the operational cost of Chinese multinationals. Design/methodology/approach: The data were analysed using a multivariate regression model. To examine their heterogeneous effect on Chinese multinationals, the political connection data were further split into higher and lower level political connections and in chief executive officer (CEO) and chairperson political connections. Findings: This study implies the negative effect of home political connections on the internationalisation of Chinese multinationals. At the same time, the impact of lower-level political connections is stronger than that of their higher-level counterparts. Moreover, CEO political connections have a stronger effect on the operational costs of Chinese multinationals than their Chairperson equivalents. Originality/value: By unravelling the "black box" of Chinese internationalisation from the social exchange perspective, through the informal political connection networking ties between Chinese firms and the government, this study advances emerging market multinational theory, contributes to the understanding of the heterogeneous nature of political connections and sheds new light on social exchange theory from the perspective of the emerging phenomenon of Chinese internationalisation.


To date a dozen transiting 'Tatooines' or circumbinary planets (CBPs) have been discovered, by eye, in the data from the Kepler mission; by contrast, thousands of confirmed circumstellar planets orbiting around single stars have been detected using automated algorithms. Automated detection of CBPs is challenging because their transits are strongly aperiodic with irregular profiles. Here, we describe an efficient and automated technique for detecting circumbinary planets that transit their binary hosts in Kepler light curves. Our method accounts for large transit timing variations (TTVs) and transit duration variations (TDVs), induced by binary reflex motion, in two ways: (1) We directly correct for large-scale TTVs and TDVs in the light curves by using Keplerian models to approximate binary and CBP orbits; and (2) We allow additional aperiodicities on the corrected light curves by employing the Quasi-periodic Automated Transit Search algorithm. We demonstrate that our method dramatically improves detection significance using simulated data and two previously identified CBP systems, Kepler-35 and Kepler-64.


Conducting polymer nanostructures are emerging materials with tremendous potential for conductometric/field effect transistor (FET) bio/chemical sensors because of their chemical sensitivity and biocompatibility. Herein, we review recent developments in conducting polymer nanowire-based sensors and discuss the impact of several milestones and continuing challenges. Particular attention is given to device fabrication, nanostructure performance enhancement, and functionalization schemes. Several assembly and integration techniques have been developed for single nanowire devices but significant progress is still needed to improve scalability and manufacturability. Future work should focus on high throughput approaches that enable combinatorial screening of conducting polymer nanowires and heterogeneous, high density arrays of conducting polymer nanostructures, deterministically tailored for targeted analytes. The spatial and temporal resolution of conducting polymer nanowires is addressed along with the origin of the sensitivity enhancement. Functionalization routes add another degree of complexity for biosensors and are discussed in the context of nanosensor performance and device fabrication.


Compositeness models are a popular explanation for the observed three generations of standard model (SM) particles. One consequence of compositeness would be the observation of excited leptons, such as excited electrons, e*, or excited muons, *. At the LHC such particles could be produced in pp collisions under the assumption that leptons are composite objects. Produced excited leptons are expected to transition to their corresponding SM lepton partner via gauge or via contact interaction. CMS has performed a recent search for e* and * in the contact interaction decay channel leading to a two-lepton plus two-jets final state using the 2016 and 2017 sqrt(s) = 13 TeV dataset. While no signal was observed, the exclusion results provide the best limits to date. The poster also compares to other complementary search channels and discusses the greater context of excited leptons searches.


Near Durango City, older andesites are overlain by approximately 800 m of rhyolitic volcanic rock, mostly ash-flow tuff of Oligocene age. The rhyolite is unconformably overlain by a few tens of meters of late Miocene basalt in the highlands west of Durango City and by Quaternary basalt and gravel in the Guadiana Valley.

By 32 m.y. ago, voluminous rhyolitic ash-flow tuff was being emplaced over a rugged topography developed on the older andesites. Shortly thereafter, sources in the Durango City area became active and produced two major ash-flow sheets. These ash-flow sheets, together with caldera-fill material, constitute the Carpintero Group. Subsidence in their source areas initiated development of the Chupaderos caldera complex. Most ash-flow sheets overlying the Carpintero Group originated from distant sources, but later eruptions from the caldera area produced one major post-Carpintero ash-flow unit with associated collapse of a distinctive inner caldera.

Rhyolitic volcanism ceased in the Durango area by 28 m.y. ago, but continued until 23 m.y. farther west. Chemical analyses of volcanic rocks from a strip mapped in detail across the Sierra Madre Occidental show systematic variations. Silicic volcanic rocks to the east are higher in silicon and potassium and lower in sodium, aluminum, and calcium than rocks to the west. The phenocryst mineralogy of volcanic rocks along the strip reflects these chemical variations.

Mafic rocks of the Durango area were erupted in three distinct episodes. A small amount of subalkaline basalt is interlayered with the Durango volcanic sequence. Later, alkaline lavas of the Metates Formation were erupted during an episode of late Miocene normal faulting. The large basalt field in the Guadiana Valley is inter-layered with Quaternary gravel, and the youngest flows are Holocene.


Telemedicine is the delivery of health-care services, where distance is a critical factor. The use of smart agent and artificial intelligence techniques to enhance such services is proposed through a description of the needs and goals of a smart agent based telemedicine system. A real-world example is presented and the use of dynamic bayesian networks (DBN) is promoted because DBN forms a well-suited formal framework to deal with uncertainty and stochactic processes which are characteristic of the domain of telemedicine. The model given in our real-world application aims at giving a daily diagnosis on the hydration state of kidney disease people. Our experiments are under way by using data of an already existing system.


Photoconductive properties such as dark conductivity, steady state and transient photoconductivity of a-Se 90 -x Te 10 Zn x thin films, prepared by thermal vacuum evaporation technique have been studied in temperature range 312-380 K. Analysis of data shows that activation energy of dark current is greater as compared to activation energy of photo current. Activation energy decreases with increase in Zn concentration which may be due to increase in defect density of states. Analysis of intensity dependent photoconductivity shows that bimolecular recombination is predominant. Photosensitivity is found to be maximum for Se 88 Te 10 Zn 2 composition after that it decreases with increase in Zn concentration. Carrier lifetime decreases with increase in Zn concentration which also confirms that density of defect states increases. Transient photoconductivity shows that the carrier lifetime decreases with increase in Zn concentration. This decrease is due to transition trapping process.


avoidance of protein precipitation and bilirubin interference without resort to complex equipment is a considerable advantage. The relation between pH and nitrite is in agreement with results obtained using different methodology.' 3 In conclusion, the suggested role of nitrite in human gastric cancer has led to a series of studies on gastric juice nitrite. We believe that the method described provides a simple and rapid analytical technique suitable for performing such studies.


Aeroderivative gas turbines have their combustion set points adjusted periodically in a process known as remapping. Even turbines that perform well after remapping may produce unacceptable behavior when external conditions change. This article introduces a digital twin that uses real-time measurements of combustor acoustics and emissions in a machine learning model that tracks recent operating conditions. The digital twin is leveraged by an optimizer that select adjustments that allow the unit to maintain combustor dynamics and emissions in compliance without seasonal remapping. Results from a pilot site demonstrate that the proposed approach can allow a GE LM6000PD unit to operate for ten months without seasonal remapping while adjusting to changes in ambient temperature (4 - 38 °C) and to different fuel compositions.


OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the current role of PSA as a diagnostic method for prostate cancer, as well as to analyze possible new markers. METHODS: We perform a bibliographic review for PSA, and its molecular forms, as a marker to define the presence of prostate cancer. We review the factors related to PSA modifications, predictive models, or the current controversies about the usefulness of its cutpoint to define the risk of prostate cancer or the marker itself. We analyze possible new markers and the most interesting work lines in the development of new markers. We used MEDLINE for the bibliographic search. RESULTS: Available data confirm that PSA has a high sensitivity; although specificity is low, mainly in the < 10 ng/ml range, it may be increased with the use of various molecular isoforms, ratios or predictive models. Nevertheless, it is true that despite such studies it is difficult to increase specificity, so biopsies are reduced. Currently we have new markers, some of them already marketed, others in development, which seem to improve the specificity of PSA (isoforms, use of molecular biology). CONCLUSIONS: PSA is still the standard marker for the diagnosis of prostate cancer. It is important to improve the specificity; therefore we need new predictive models or new isoforms that help us to do a better selection of candidates for biopsy. There are various promising research lines with new markers, but there is not ideal substitute for PSA yet.


Abstract : The Department of Defense (DoD) relies heavily on information systems to complete a myriad of tasks, from day-to-day personnel actions to mission critical imagery retrieval, intelligence analysis, and mission planning. The astronomical growth in size and performance of data storage systems leads to problems in processing the amount of data returned on any given query. Typical relational database systems return a set of unordered records. This approach is acceptable in small information systems, but in large systems, such as military image retrieval systems with more than 1 million records, it requires considerable time (often hours to days) to sort through thousands of records and select the relevant for analysis. This research introduces Intelligent Query Answering (IQA) as a novel approach to information retrieval. IQA implements the FOIL algorithm to learn rules based upon user feedback QUI90. The Winnow algorithm adjusts rule weights based on user classification, for improved document orderings BLU97. A semantic tree specific to the domain allows rule generalization across the domain. Testing shows a document sort accuracy rate of 63-93% against a controlled test dataset and 78-89% accuracy rate on a subset of declassified National Air Intelligence Center imagery metadata. These results demonstrate that this research provides groundwork for future efforts in rule learning and rule generalization in the information retrieval field.


Do the Romans have anything to teach us about the way that they saw the world, and the way they ran their empire? How did they deal with questions of frontiers and migration, so often in the news today? This collection of ten important essays by C. R. Whittaker, engages with debates and controversies about the Roman frontiers and the concept of empire. Truly global in its focus, the book examines the social, political and cultural implications of the Roman frontiers in Africa, India, Britain, Europe, Asia and the Far East, and provides a comprehensive account of their significance.


Vitamin E absorption requires the presence of fat; however, limited information exists on the influence of fat quantity on optimal absorption. In the present study we compared the absorption of stable-isotope-labelled vitamin E following meals of varying fat content and source. In a randomised four-way cross-over study, eight healthy individuals consumed a capsule containing 150 mg 2H-labelled RRR-α-tocopheryl acetate with a test meal of toast with butter (17·5 g fat), cereal with full-fat milk (17·5 g fat), cereal with semi-skimmed milk (2·7 g fat) and water (0 g fat). Blood was taken at 0, 0·5, 1, 1·5, 2, 3, 6 and 9 h following ingestion, chylomicrons were isolated, and 2H-labelled α-tocopherol was analysed in the chylomicron and plasma samples. There was a significant time (P<0·001) and treatment effect (P<0·001) in 2H-labelled α-tocopherol concentration in both chylomicrons and plasma between the test meals. 2H-labelled α-tocopherol concentration was significantly greater with the higher-fat toast and butter meal compared with the low-fat cereal meal or water (P<0·001), and a trend towards greater concentration compared with the high-fat cereal meal (P=0·065). There was significantly greater 2H-labelled α-tocopherol concentration with the high-fat cereal meal compared with the low-fat cereal meal (P<0·05). The 2H-labelled α-tocopherol concentration following either the low-fat cereal meal or water was low. These results demonstrate that both the amount of fat and the food matrix influence vitamin E absorption. These factors should be considered by consumers and for future vitamin E intervention studies.


Acknowledgements Many thanks to my supervisor, Simon Shackley, whose enthusiasm and personability brought this project to life. Many thanks to my parents, without whose support this Masters course would not have been possible. Abstract Life cycle analysis is carried out for 11 predicted configurations of pyrolysis biochar systems to determine greenhouse gas balance, using an original spreadsheet model. System parameters reflect deployment in Scotland, and results demonstrate that all major crop and forestry feedstocks offer greater GHG abatement than other bioenergy technologies, regardless of system configuration. Sensitivity analysis determines the relative importance of uncertain variables in the model and optimistic to pessimistic scenarios are used for system operation. Slow pyrolysis is compared to fast pyrolysis and biomass co-firing for GHG abatement and electricity production, using various scenarios for availability of indigenous Scottish feedstocks.


The field of advertising has been on a constant uptick since it came into being. While the advent of Television gave advertising a massive push, the next big thing, the Internet, gave rise to Internet advertising. However a debate has raged on for quite a while now as to the efficacy and effectiveness of advertising in the different media like print, radio, TV, Internet, outdoor etc. With the coming of Internet, people started comparing its effectiveness in the context of advertising vis-a-vis other traditional media, most notably TV. Since then, studies have taken place to ascertain the superiority of one medium over the other. However, the results have been conflicting.


Container technology provides a lightweight operating system level virtual hosting environment. Its emergence profoundly changes the development and deployment paradigms of multi-tier distributed applications. However, due to the incomplete implementation of system resource isolation mechanisms in the Linux kernel, some security concerns still exist for multiple containers sharing an operating system kernel on a multi-tenancy container-based cloud service. In this paper, we first present the information leakage channels we discovered that are accessible within containers. Such channels expose a spectrum of system-wide host information to containers without proper resource partitioning. By exploiting such leaked host information, it becomes much easier for malicious adversaries (acting as tenants in a container cloud) to launch attacks that might impact the reliability of cloud services. We demonstrate that the information leakage channels could be exploited to infer private data, detect and verify co-residence, build covert channels, and launch more advanced cloud-based attacks. We discuss the root causes of the containers' information leakage and propose a two-stage defense approach. As demonstrated in the evaluation, our defense is effective and incurs trivial performance overhead.


Exploration of the synergistic effect in catalysis upon simultaneous utilization of two sources of power, ultrasound and light, is barely explored and remains a challenging issue. A crucial reason behind this is the difficulty in designing and constructing a well-defined sonophotoreactor capable of taking advantage of the benefits of combining sonochemistry and photochemistry. Herein, we present our successful reactor and a detailed study regarding how the utilization of ultrasonication can act as a process intensification tool for selective and partial photooxidation of a biomass derived model compound, benzyl alcohol. The main outcome was the enhanced selectivity in the case of sonophotocatalysis compared to photocatalysis. This selectivity was ascribed to the effects derived from the cavitation phenomena, leading to phenomena such as hot spot formation and jetting. Our study can act as guidance towards understanding the unique effects of ultrasound irradiation as a hybrid process intensification method (HPIM) towards application in more complex chemical reactions and manipulation of the nanocatalysts' photoreactivity in catalytic valorization applications.


Some chapters, however, seem only loosely connected with antenatal diagnosis (eg, screening for inherited traits, detection of heterozygotes). There is also considerable overlap between chapters and the lack of an index makes it difficult to find information. The last 2 chapters on the legal (Sadler) and eugenic (Neel) implications of antenatal diagnosis are very interesting, but no one but a lawyer would be able to make sense of the references at the end of the legal chapter. This book is a readable and inexpensive account of work being carried out by some of the best known investigators in antenatal diagnosis and related fields. It is unfortunate, however, that there is a certain lack of cohesion and uniformity in the various presentations. ALAN EMERY


Significance Existing screening tools for HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) are often clinically impractical for detecting milder forms of impairment. The formal diagnosis of HAND requires an assessment of both cognition and impairment in activities of daily living (ADL). To address the critical need for identifying patients who may have disability associated with HAND, we implemented a low-cost screening tool, the Virtual Driving Test (VDT) platform, in a vulnerable cohort of people with HIV (PWH). The VDT presents an opportunity to cost-effectively screen for milder forms of impairment while providing practical guidance for a cognitively demanding ADL. Objectives We aimed to: (1) evaluate whether VDT performance variables were associated with a HAND diagnosis and if so; (2) systematically identify a manageable subset of variables for use in a future screening model for HAND. As a secondary objective, we examined the relative associations of identified variables with impairment within the individual domains used to diagnose HAND. Methods In a cross-sectional design, 62 PWH were recruited from an established HIV cohort and completed a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment (CNPA), followed by a self-directed VDT. Dichotomized diagnoses of HAND-specific impairment and impairment within each of the seven CNPA domains were ascertained. A systematic variable selection process was used to reduce the large amount of VDT data generated, to a smaller subset of VDT variables, estimated to be associated with HAND. In addition, we examined associations between the identified variables and impairment within each of the CNPA domains. Results More than half of the participants (N = 35) had a confirmed presence of HAND. A subset of twenty VDT performance variables was isolated and then ranked by the strength of its estimated associations with HAND. In addition, several variables within the final subset had statistically significant associations with impairment in motor function, executive function, and attention and working memory, consistent with previous research. Conclusion We identified a subset of VDT performance variables that are associated with HAND and assess relevant functional abilities among individuals with HAND. Additional research is required to develop and validate a predictive HAND screening model incorporating this subset.


Winter annual cover crops, widely used in no-till systems, can be an important source of N for the subsequent crop. Because many factors affect net N mineralization from cover crop residues, computer models can be powerful tools to predict it. The CERES models, which are some of the most widespread models for simulating the whole crop-soil system, have a common submodel (CERES-N) that describes N transformations. The objectives of this study were to determine decay rate constants under nonlimiting conditions for the carbohydrates and cellulose pools (CARB and CELL) of CERES-N for residues that decompose on the soil surface, and to test if two modifications to CERES-N could improve the simulation of N mineralization. The two modifications were to : (i) allow the user to vary the relative size of the residue pools (CARB, CELL, and lignin), and (ii) allow stems and leaves to decompose separately, having a common point of interaction through the inorganic N pool. Results of a 6-mo laboratory incubation experiment with four cover crop residues were used to adjust rate constants and test the effect of model modifications. The decay rates obtained were 0.14 and 0.0034 d -1 for CARB and CELL, respectively. Allowing the user to vary the relative size of residue pools greatly improved the simulation of net N mineralized (root mean square error of the model decreased from 1.0 to 0.28 g m -2 ), whereas modeling the separate decomposition of leaves and stems only caused a slight improvement in the prediction of net N mineralized.


ABSTRACT Many studies have investigated the relation between growing up in single-parent families and crime. However, an up-to-date overview of the literature on this topic is lacking. To fill this gap, this article reviews the empirical literature regarding the effects of being raised in a single-parent family on criminal behavior of adolescent offspring, and additionally focusses on whether the effects depend on how single-parent families were constituted (by parental divorce or separation, by parental decease, or by being born to a single parent). A systematic search in five electronic databases (Web of Science, PsycINFO, Scopus, SocINDEX, and EconLit) is conducted to identify empirical studies on this topic, resulting in 48 studies that conform to a range of substantive and methodological selection criteria. The results suggest that growing up in single-parent families is associated with an elevated risk of involvement in crime by adolescents and that more research is needed to determine the effects of the different constituting events of single-parent families.


The FeLV-FAIDS strain of feline leukemia virus consistently induces fatal immunodeficiency. To investigate the immunopathogenesis and viral genetic determinants responsible for the induction of immunodeficiency disease in vivo, we have generated chimeras between the two major viral genomes in the original virus isolate, designated common form clone 61E and major variant clone 61C, which were molecularly cloned directly from DNA of the same animal and tissue. Each of three 61E/C chimeras, containing at minimum a 34-amino-acid segment (including a 6-amino-acid insertion and one amino acid substitution) near the C terminus of the 61C surface glycoprotein (gp70), induced fatal immunodeficiency disease in all (12 of 12) infected animals over a course of 33 +/- 10 weeks. By contrast, animals infected with virus 61E, although persistently antigenemic, remained asymptomatic throughout a 48-week observation period. Beginning 14 weeks after infection, a significant decrease (8 to 10%) in the percent of circulating CD4+ T lymphocytes developed in the 61E/C chimera-infected cats, compared with either 61E-infected or control animals. At this time, no significant changes were seen in CD8 cells, B cells, or mitogen-induced blastogenesis. Prior to this initial decline in CD4 cells, the ability of all antigenemic 61E/C-infected cats to generate a primary antibody response to the T-cell-dependent antigen keyhole limpet hemocyanin was markedly impaired, whereas all 61E-infected cats, one 61E/C-infected but nonviremic cat, and all uninfected control cats produced normal antibody responses. The results reported here demonstrate that a major determinant of in vivo immunodeficiency induction by FeLV-FAIDS is contained within a 34-amino-acid C-terminal segment of its surface glycoprotein and that this gp70 alteration determines the early and persistent deficits in CD4+ T lymphocytes and T-cell-dependent antibody responses. We hypothesize that these early immunologic alterations could result from early deletion of a CD4+ helper T-cell subset.


Among many different multicast approaches, batching and patching are two commonly used policies. In this paper, we propose two hybrid multicast algorithms inspired by the maximum factored queue length (MFQL) batching scheme - used to decide which video queue will be serviced with a multicast session - and by a threshold-based patching scheme - applied to control the partial streams transmission before a threshold is reached during an ongoing multicast session. The novelty is that our algorithms have been designed to efficiently handle the requests in a distributed VoD system while optimizing the usage of the sever/network resources. Precisely, one key issue in the optimization of these resources is the computation of the threshold. We show in this paper how that threshold is derived to deliver a service. In addition, we conduct some simulation experiments that provides us some insightful information about the impact that our threshold based multicast algorithms have in the average waiting time in a distributed VoD system.


In this paper we review some recent studies of the impact of National Competition Policy on rural Australia. National Competition Policy has tended to assume that both domestic and international deregulation of industry leads to a shift from a noncompetitive to a competitive industry structure. Due to the well known efficiency properties of competitive industry structures deregulation is justified as a means to generating greater efficiency in resource allocation. Whilst little can be said about the long-run evolution of market structures, in the short and medium term a competitive industry structure may not develop due to spatial, institutional and intertemporal imperfections. If these imperfections are ignored the costs of reform may be higher than necessary and the reform, as implemented, may not lead to the desired efficiency gains. We compare a series of studies of the Australian wheat, pig and sugar industries that have used a variety of methodologies to analyse the impact of deregulation on rural Australia. These studies are all consistent in that they suggest that the costs of deregulation could be reduced if increased emphasis were place on understanding industry structure and a staged approach to reform were followed.


: As health care moves to the outpatient setting, home care providers are in a critical position to influence physician practice patterns. An effective communication plan that facilitates the exchange of information between the home care provider and its physician customers will bridge the customer service gap and strengthen the relationship between the physician and the provider.


AIMS
Long-term beta-blockade reduced mortality after acute myocardial infarction by about a quarter in a series of published trials. Representative data on beta-blocker use for secondary prevention are scanty but indicate wide variations. We have analysed European practice, and sources of variation, by regional sampling of acute myocardial infarction patients admitted to hospital in 11 countries during the period January 1993-June 1994.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Treatment data for 4035 representative patients were collected for the hospital phase and 6 months after discharge. A logistic regression model was developed to describe the predictors of beta-blocker use. In the 11 regional samples, 6-38% (20% overall) of patients had no recorded contraindications but were discharged without a beta-blocker. In the absence of perceived contraindications, there was a strong, independent negative association between age and odds of treatment (P < 0.001), and women were less likely to be treated than men (adjusted odds ratio 0.76, 95% CI 0.58-0.99). Discontinuation of beta-blocker treatment by 6 months was significantly less likely in regions where the proportion given such treatment at discharge was high. In contrast, use of antithrombotic agents in the samples was consistently high.

CONCLUSIONS
There is persisting low use of beta-blocker secondary prophylaxis, particularly in the elderly and in women, not attributable to perceived contraindications or intolerance. Considerable regional variations persist despite shared trials evidence. Discharge treatment strongly influences long-term medication.


We detected genetic variation for the sex ratio in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis by analysis of inbred lines and with an artificial selection experiment. Sex ratios differed significantly among five independently isolated lines. Furthermore, sex ratio in broods produced by single females in single hosts shifted from 80-90% female to 50-55% female in 13 to 15 generations in each of two replicate selection lines. The final sex ratios of both selection lines were significantly lower than any of the inbred line sex ratios. Backcrosses revealed that the selection response was due to nuclear genes acting through the female parent. In light of known facultative sex ratio behavior and major genes affecting sex ratio in Nasonia, our results suggest that population and individual sex ratios in this species are molded by processes at both genetic and behavioral levels.


Taking the method of formal consensus as its conceptual point of departure, the article analyses the Swedish cadastral executive procedure ( fastighetsförrättning ) as a case where the issue of land use directly confronts the individual citizen with the state administrative apparatus and its interpretation of the land policy legislation. In the mixture of negotiations, consensual decision-making and court procedure that characterizes this process the emphasis is on the crucial, and complex role of the executive land surveyor. Identifying deliberative democracy and communicative planning theory as two complementary discourses within which to discuss the cadastral executive procedure, the article finally argues that giving consensual approaches to planning a stronger place in their training would substantially improve the ability of the land surveyor to execute her/his delicate set of roles in this procedure.


The precision diagnosis of subway electric multiple units (EMUs) was conducted with various types of engineering analysis techniques for the current performance and wear evaluation. The evaluation was conducted on detailed parts of EMUs, such as car bodies, bogies, braking systems, and electrical systems of EMUs. Several characterization means including nondestructive evaluation techniques, corrosion testing, and three-dimensional measurements, were employed for the evaluation of car bodies and bogies. For braking system, degradation and performance tests were conducted, while the functional and degradation tests were performed on electrical system in order to identify the actual performance of the system. Moreover, stress and structural analyses using commercial finite element method (FEM) software provided important information on stress distribution and load transfer mechanisms. In this investigation, various advanced engineering analysis techniques for the safety analysis of subway EMUs have been introduced and the analysis results have been used to provide the critical information for the criteria of safety assessment.


Links to databases for Community Psychology, the study of individuals' relationships to community and society. Also helpful for community profiling, community-based mental health, prevention, and related topics.


Like the transabdominal bladder neck suspension, the aim of the transvaginal needle suspension of the bladder neck is to suspend the bladder neck and urethra in a fixed retropubic position. Because the transvaginal technique does not require the splitting of the abdominal wall fascia, postoperative discomfort and convalescence may be lessened. Different techniques of transvaginal needle bladder neck suspension, including suspension of the bladder neck with a fascial sling, are discussed in detail.


As the device shapes keep shrinking, the designs are more sensitive to manufacturing processes. In order to improve performance predictability and yield, mask-layout uniformity/evenness is highly desired, and it is usually measured by the feature densities within defined feasible ranges determined by the manufacturing-process design rules. To address the density-control problem, one fundamental problem is how to calculate density accurately and efficiently. In this paper, we propose a fast exact algorithm to identify the maximum/minimum density for a given layout. Compared with the existing exact algorithms, our algorithm reduces the running time from days/long hours to a few minutes/seconds. Moreover, it is even faster than the existing approximate algorithms in the literature.


By way of a multidisciplinary approach, this article advances the idea that our listening to certain practices of contemporary art music (electroacoustic, classical contemporary, and electronic music) relies on precise connections to the early stage of perception. These styles of music are characterised by essential sound configurations that evolve in time, thus eliciting a sensorial impact which transcends features regarding sound sources and affective responses. Listeners grasp what Scruton calls 'pure events' in a 'world of sound', being able to distinguish, separate and sort acoustic stimuli. The article establishes a key parallel among seminal works of Bregman, McAdams, Kubovy, Bayle and other authors, highlighting a fundamental agreement of perceptual studies in psychology, neurophysiology and musicology for the understanding of the early stage of sound perception. Music practices typical of this perspective develop certain sound configurations, such as figure/ground arrangements, recurrent elements and morphological distinction, that closely mirror our innate mechanisms of prediction in perception. A parallel is made between studies in the philosophy of perception and the neurophysiology which allows us to postulate the idea that these styles of music are essentially based on pure temporal proto-objects.


The aim of the study was to assess the yielding of selected legume species with diversified morphological structure cultivated for seeds in ecological system. The field experiment was carried out in 2016–2018. The first factor was legume species: faba bean, field pea, yellow lupine, and blue lupine, and the second factor was varieties of legumes: faba bean (Granit and Amulet), field pea (Hubal and Batuta), blue lupine (Kurant and Regent), and yellow lupine (Bursztyn and Perkoz). After the harvest, the grain yield of legume plants and the weight of a thousand seeds were determined. The plant structure was determined (length of the part of fruiting stem, number of pods and seeds per plant, number of seeds in the pod, number of fruiting nodes, number of pods and seeds from the node). In addition, the content of selected nutrients (protein, fiber, fat, macroelements) was determined in seeds. Studies showed that in ecological conditions, the pea cultivation, especially Hubal variety (with bipinnate leaves), enabled obtaining the largest seed yield, while the smallest seed yields yellow lupine independent of the morphological type. The selfcompleting varieties of faba bean, yellow lupine, and blue lupines were yielded at a higher level than varieties with a traditional growth type. Among the pea varieties assessed, the variety Hubal yielded better (with bipinnate leaves). Significantly, higher yield of protein is provided by faba bean cultivation, while the smaller level of pea and yellow lupine.


Nanostructures engineered from DNA are becoming increasing popular in interdisciplinary research laboratories globally due to their ease to design and build, as well as their huge potential as devices for applications such as drug delivery and biosensors. Although many studies have used these structures alongside molecules that interact with DNA, little has been done to understand the effects of nanostructured DNA on ligand binding, and vice versa. In this thesis, a simple DNA tetrahedron, folded from four oligonucleotides, is used as a model in which to assess ligand interactions for a variety of DNA-binding agents. We characterised two DNA tetrahedron designs by band shifts, cleavage assays, chemical probing and melting studies. One of these tetrahedra, based on a previous design, was modified to incorporate single binding sites on each edge for a number of sequence-specific DNA-binding ligands: minor groove binders Hoechst 33258 and distamycin, intercalators actinomycin D, echinomycin, TANDEM and nogalamycin, and major groove binding triplex forming oligonucleotides. Band shifts, DNase I footprinting, global melting with UV and SYBR green I, as well as location-specific melting with fluorescent beacons were used to assess the interaction of these ligands with the DNA tetrahedron compared to linear duplex DNA. The results found actinomycin was able to inhibit folding of the structure, whereas other ligands did not. Sequence-selectivity was generally consistent across linear duplex and nanostructured DNA, though some changes in secondary binding sites were observed, however, Hoechst, distamycin and actinomycin showed reduced affinity to the nanostructure. Global thermal melting studies showed that all the ligands enhance stability, however, fluorescence beacons placed at specific locations found that many of the ligands were able to stabilise regions of the tetrahedron remote from their binding sites, including across junctions. The work described helps present a clearer understanding of ligand interactions with DNA nanostructures, as well demonstrates a model in which to assess structure stability at specific locations within a DNA nanostructure. This will aid the design and function of future DNA-based devices.


Surveillance is often held to be a key element in the development of effective injury prevention programs. When based in emergency rooms, it provides better estimates of the magnitude of the injury problem than mortality data alone. Ideally, surveillance also provides early warnings of new hazards and may be used for program evaluation.

Before 1990, in Canada only statistics on mortality, hospitalizations, and from some surveys of specific injuries, were available. There was little information on the occurrence of injuries severe enough to require medical care but not necessitating a hospital admission. Without such data injuries arising from new causes could not be identified quickly and it was difficult to evaluate intervention programs using injuries as the outcome.

The Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP) is an emergency room based injury surveillance system that operates in 10 pediatric and six general hospitals. Technical and financial support are provided by the Child Injury Division (CID) of the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control (LCDC), a Directorate of Health Canada (Canada's federal Department of Health). The main office of the program is in Ottawa; participating hospitals are located in seven provinces and one territory.

This paper provides an account of the development and operation of CHIRPP which was created in response to Canada's need for better data. This detailed description is intended to help colleagues in other countries who have similar concerns. Many papers have used data from this program,1–24 but no comprehensive description of it has been published previously.

Following a visit to Australia in 1988, one of us (IBP) initiated efforts to create a system similar to its National Injury Surveillance and Prevention Program (NISPP) in Canada. The first step was to convince hospital administrators that such a system was important and feasible. Accordingly, directors of all …


A haptics investigation is conducted when human subjects have to deal with a bilateral teleoperation system with two levels of time delay (400 and 1,000 ms) and four types of scaling matrices that provide a passivity form of stabilization. The wave variable method was implemented to produce a controllable human-machine response. What is of interest is the resulting performance that occurs from such systems which remain passive but impacts the overall human tracking performance that can be achieved. The question addressed is how these imposed stability restrictions (via architecture constraints) may degrade human tracking performance?


Modeling and simulation of recrystallization, grain growth, and related phenomena are important tools for the fundamental understanding of microstructural evolution and prediction of engineering properties. In particular for ultra fine grained and nanocrystalline materials proper account of microstructural evolution is essential for the optimal processing of these materials. It is shown that for modeling of softening phenomena it is important to discriminate between discontinuous primary recrystallization and discontinuous grain growth owing to their quite different underlying physics. Recent developments in recrystallization modeling and simulation of grain growth are addressed, in particular nucleation of recrystallization and junction effects in grain growth. Major progress is also expected from atomistic modeling and quantum-mechanical computations for making available specific material properties.


Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that affects about one out of 100 people with symptoms generally emerging in early adulthood. According to the DSM-IV, schizophrenia is characterized by psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations, delusions, bizarre behavior or speech and negative symptoms such as flattening of affect. Psychotic symptoms such as hallucination and delusions are regarded as particularly characteristic for schizophrenia, although they may also occur in other psychiatric disorders. Besides these psychotic symptoms, which are often treatable with antipsychotic medication, people with schizophrenia experience negative symptoms (social withdrawal, affective flattening, apathy, alogia) and cognitive disturbances, e.g. memory dysfunction, attention problems, and emotional dysfunction. It are mainly these latter problems that cause that the majority of people with schizophrenia are unable to built up a social network, career and romantic relationships, making it one of the most invalidating psychiatric disease. Currently, the prevalent idea is that emotion processing is generally deficient in schizophrenia. Thus, the emphasis is solely on reductions or impairments. However, some studies suggest that schizophrenia is associated with a reduced ability to perceive and express emotions, with at the same time intact or even heightened emotional experience. This disjunction between emotional processes in schizophrenia was investigated in more detail. Second, this thesis dealt with investigating the presence of emotional abnormalities in individuals high on the schizophrenia spectrum continuum. Emotional abnormalities in people at high-risk for schizophrenia are hypothesized, because emotional abnormalities appear to be a core feature of schizophrenia and would therefore be expected to be present to a certain degree in high-risk individuals. Finally, we investigated the influence of social-emotional aspects on other cognitive functions, such as decision-making, in patients with schizophrenia and individuals at high-risk for schizophrenia. The most important findings are that emotional abnormalities appear to be central to schizophrenia and are also present in individuals with a liability for schizophrenia-like traits or an increased genetic risk. This suggests that emotional abnormalities can be regarded as a vulnerability marker for schizophrenia. However, these emotional abnormalities do not reflect an overall reduction in all aspect of emotion processing, i.e. perception, expression, experience and psychophysiology. Instead, schizophrenia patients and individuals at high risk report normal or higher levels of emotional experience, whereas the expression of emotions appears deficient. With respect to the perception of emotion, results depend on the type of processing that occurs, i.e. automatic, incidental processing or controlled, elaborative processing of affective information. These findings suggest a disjunction between deficits in elaborative processing of emotions on the one hand, and normal or increased emotional reactivity on the other hand. Moreover, deficits in the perception and expression of emotions appear to be consistently related to negative symptoms, such as blunted affect and social emotional withdrawal. In addition, positive symptoms might be related to an increased subjective emotional arousal. The finding of a particular pattern of emotional abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia and individuals at high risk for schizophrenia could give clues about the underlying brain pathology and ultimately the development of treatment strategies that selectively target those brain systems.


Studies have shown that the trophic transfer of certain metals in aquatic systems may be controlled by the internal distribution of metal within prey and that this distribution may be influenced by detoxification mechanisms (i.e. metals bound to metal-binding proteins [metallothioneins, MT] may be more available to predators than metals associated with insoluble cellular constituents). The purpose of this investigation was to examine the interactive effects of Cd and Zn exposure on the accumulation and subcellular distribution of these metals in the brine shrimp Artemia franciscana. Particular attention was given to the partitioning of metals to a subcellular compartment containing heat-stable proteins (HSP) (e.g. MT), heat-denatured proteins (HDP) (e.g. 'enzymes') and organelles, here considered as trophically available metal (TAM). Adult A. franciscana were exposed for 3 d to Cd (control, 1, 89 or 445 μM and Zn-control) or Zn (control, 1, 89 or 445 μM and Cd-control) through solution using radioisotopes ( 109 Cd and 65 Zn) as tracers of stable metals. Following exposure, various operationally defined subcellular fractions were obtained. Increased binding of Cd to HSP resulted in increased partitioning of Cd to the TAM compartment (i.e. TAM-Cd% increased from 57 to 80% over the range of Cd exposures). This increase in TAM was greater than proportional at the 1 μM Cd exposure concentration and could result in a 'bioenhancement' of Cd trophic transfer to predators. Exposure to elevated concentrations of Cd (89 and 445 μM) also resulted in a ∼50% suppression in Zn accumulation by A. franciscana. Upon increasing Zn exposure, a shift in the subcellular partitioning of Zn among TAM fractions (from HSP to HDP and organelles) maintained a TAM-Zn% of ∼65%. As a verification of the TAM concept, a direct relationship was observed between the partitioning of Cd and Zn to the TAM compartment of A. franciscana exposed to the Cd-control/Zn-control treatment and absorption of these metals by the grass shrimp Palaemonetes pugio.


The soc1 ful double mutant of A. thaliana produced substantial secondary growth throughout all aboveground stems, whereas in the Col accession only a few cell layers of wood were produced at the base of old stems. This increased wood formation may be linked to inactivation of the flowering time genes SOC1 and FUL (Melzer et al., 2008). These two genes could play a crucial regulatory role in triggering genetic mechanisms that lead to insular woodiness outside A. thaliana, and this 'simple' two-gene loss could explain why many nonrelated herbaceous families have independently evolved into woody insular lineages throughout the world. However, SOC1 and FUL might not be the only suppressors of cambium formation; other upstream, downstream or parallel-acting (positive or negative) regulators could be even more important. Therefore, it is evident that many missing pieces of this intriguing genetic puzzle leading to insular woodiness in eudicots need to be found before we can better understand one of the most
fascinating developmental aspects of plants (cf. Lev-Yadun, 1994; Chaffey et al., 2002; Nieminen et al., 2004).


This thesis is a journey of discovery into a personal pedagogical perspective which the author refers to as 'a pedagogy of affirmation'. Starting from the text of a teacher's written journal, the writer begins to question the source of teacher motivation and examines his own beliefs and thoughts about teaching within both his personal experience but also in more global contexts. In conjunction with questions of personal and social identity, the author links characteristics of social dominance with those of dominant personality traits and illustrates the complexity of the individual with the use of mythology and through what is referred to as 'a poetic basis of mind'. By understanding more fully the question of identity, the author looks at the character of education today with particular reference to the influence of the business model. This he contrasts with characteristics such as caring, community, and communicationThrough questioning and coming to understand more clearly the characteristics of public education, the writer begins to recognize more fully his own involvement and personal perspectives with regards to the classroom. This he articulates in the final chapter of the thesis.


NHS hospital bosses have warned that a culture of bullying from "oppressive" regulators has been harming innovation efforts and motivating experienced leaders to leave the NHS.

The warnings came in a new report by the health policy think thank the King's Fund and NHS Providers, the membership organisation for providers of NHS services. In the report 12 NHS chief executives who were either leaving or had recently left the health service were interviewed.1

While interviewees spoke positively about making a difference to patients and staff, the report said that "the sense of pressure and constraint, in some cases bordering on bullying, is also palpable."

A number of chief executives said that scrutiny levels had worsened during recent years and warned that pressure from the many system regulators was harming attempts to innovate.

In the report Mark Newbold, a former hospital doctor turned …


In general-purpose graphics processing unit (GPGPU) computing, data is processed by concurrent threads executing the same function. This model, dubbed single-instruction/multiple-thread (SIMT), requires programmers to coordinate the synchronous execution of similar operations across thousands of data elements. To alleviate this programmer burden, Gaster and Howes outlined the channel abstraction, which facilitates dynamically aggregating asynchronously produced fine-grain work into coarser-grain tasks. However, no practical implementation has been proposed. To this end, we propose and evaluate the first channel implementation. To demonstrate the utility of channels, we present a case study that maps the fine-grain, recursive task spawning in the Cilk programming language to channels by representing it as a flow graph. To support data-parallel recursion in bounded memory, we propose a hardware mechanism that allows wavefronts to yield their execution resources. Through channels and wavefront yield, we implement four Cilk benchmarks. We show that Cilk can scale with the GPU architecture, achieving speedups of as much as 4.3x on eight compute units.


Recurrent posterior shoulder instability is an uncommon, debilitating condition in young adults that is being diagnosed with increasing frequency. Although a number of predisposing factors have been identified, their relative importance remains poorly understood. Poor results have been reported following operative intervention to treat recurrent posterior instability with nonanatomic techniques. The more recent development of lesion-specific surgery has improved clinical results, particularly when that surgery has been performed arthroscopically. Operative treatment is therefore being increasingly recommended at an earlier stage to patients who do not respond to supervised rehabilitation programs.


ABSTRACT Many Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques currently available rely on discrete-time reversible Markov processes whose transition kernels are variations of the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm. We explore and generalize an alternative scheme recently introduced in the physics literature (Peters and de With 2012) where the target distribution is explored using a continuous-time nonreversible piecewise-deterministic Markov process. In the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm, a trial move to a region of lower target density, equivalently of higher "energy," than the current state can be rejected with positive probability. In this alternative approach, a particle moves along straight lines around the space and, when facing a high energy barrier, it is not rejected but its path is modified by bouncing against this barrier. By reformulating this algorithm using inhomogeneous Poisson processes, we exploit standard sampling techniques to simulate exactly this Markov process in a wide range of scenarios of interest. Additionally, when the target distribution is given by a product of factors dependent only on subsets of the state variables, such as the posterior distribution associated with a probabilistic graphical model, this method can be modified to take advantage of this structure by allowing computationally cheaper "local" bounces, which only involve the state variables associated with a factor, while the other state variables keep on evolving. In this context, by leveraging techniques from chemical kinetics, we propose several computationally efficient implementations. Experimentally, this new class of Markov chain Monte Carlo schemes compares favorably to state-of-the-art methods on various Bayesian inference tasks, including for high-dimensional models and large datasets. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


Access control policies permit, prohibit or oblige subjects to perform actions on resources. In systems where multiple policies are described, conflicts among such policies can arise. Two policies are in conflict when the fulfillment of one policy violates the other and vice-versa. On the one hand, direct conflicts are detected by observing the overlap of policy elements (i.e., subjects, actions and objects). On the other hand, indirect conflicts can only be detected when implicit relationships between subjects, objects and actions of two policies are analyzed. This paper presents several relationships that can be used between the elements of the policies together with their propagation rules and conflict detection rules. The propagation rules propagate policies applied to an organization, entity or object to other organizations, entities or objects related to it. The conflict rules are used to check for conflicts between pairs of policies by taking into account the relationships between the elements of the policies.


The major problem of this study is to identify through the use of the Critical Incident Technique the main requirements for successful ministerial service in the South Carolina Annual Conference of the Methodist Church, insofar as these requirements can be determined through lay observations and judgments. The following sub-problems are closely related to the major problem: 1. What special demands are made upon the minister by special subgroups within the church--e.g., youth, women's groups--in regard to pastoral behavior? 2. How important are the roles assigned to the minister by the church itself--e.g., preacher, teacher, counselor, visitor, administrator, priest? 3. Do churches of varying sizes differ in their expectations of the Ministerial office--e.g., do large churches place greater emphasis upon preaching? 4. Does educational training and/or the salary of the minister correlate with the number of successful incidents reported by respondents?


According to the LDWS (Lane Departure Warning Systems), of which the universal departure evaluation algorithm is on the hypothesis that both the lateral speed and the turning radius are constant. In this paper, a roadway departure evaluation algorithm is proposed based on the basic static stable preview principle. Firstly the arrived place of vehicle in some future time was anticipated according to the present steady state, and the steady preview was carried on traveling track of vehicle. Then the roadway departure was evaluated based on the deviation of anticipated tracing point from the lateral and the longitudinal distance of roadway. Through the algorithm, the warning precision on vehicle can be largely increased and the happening of nuisance alarm can be well avoided.


The involvement of abnormalities of the BRCA1 gene in breast cancers in Japanese patients without any family history of this cancer was investigated by polymerase chain reaction‐based single‐strand conformation polymorphism analysis of the DNA sequences corresponding to the zinc finger domain (exons 2, 3 and 5) and the binding domain with Rad51 (exon 11) of the BRCA1 protein. An identical nonsense mutation at codon 63 (TTA to TAA) was found in 2 of 56 (3.5%) breast cancers from independent patients. The nucleotide change was also detected in the DNAs from non‐cancerous tissues of both patients and therefore was a germline mutation. One of the patients was a member of a pedigree involving 3 ovarian cancer and 1 gastric cancer patients, while the other patient had no family history of malignancy. The same germline mutation at codon 63 was reported in four other independent Japanese pedigrees with frequent breast cancer, but not in such families in other countries. These observations suggest that the mutation commonly originated from a single Japanese ancestor. No other mutation of the BRCA1 gene was observed in the samples analyzed in this study. A low incidence of germline mutation and the absence of somatic mutation suggest that the aberration of the BRCA1 gene is involved only in a subset of Japanese breast cancers.


Nanojet means that the liquid is forced to pass through the nozzle with the nanosize diameter, we report here that nanojet was formed for the first time in lab by heating the PbO coated Pb clusters. In this experiment, the coated clusters are heated to more than 200 C and it was found that the inner Pb core melted and ran out from the cracked outer shell with a 200-nm-long(as long) trail. The in situ TEM revealed that the process occurred very quickly, the temperature-variable Raman scattering was carried out to characterize the pressure change of the nano core/shell system, in which, the width of the peak corresponding to the Ag mode of PbO was found increasing slowly between 0degC and 160degC, then abruptly rising and continuing with an abrupt drop after 200degC. It demonstrated the pressure-driving nanojet mechanism. The size effect and the multiple jets were also investigated


The article analyzes conditions and functionality of the temperate windbreak in the southeast of the Czech Republic in the cadastral area of Hrušky village. Two windbreaks with a total length of about 4.5 km, representing about 45% of the length of all windbreaks established in the cadastral territory in the 1960s, were selected for our investigation. For the purpose of the field research, both windbreaks were further divided into two parts and then, according to their structure, health condition and function, into sub-segments. In total, 85 segments were distinguished. Detected width of windbreak ranged from 7 to 39 m. In the windbreak tree species composition, common oak predominated with 35%, followed by maple ash (22%) and black poplar (16%). There was also a lower proportion of field elm (12%), black walnut (8%) and small-leaved linden (6%). Height of the windbreak depended on the tree species composition and ranged from 2 to 31.5 m. Function and health condition of the windbreak is limited by insufficient stand care. Thinning treatments specified for concrete segments can be recommended. Partial or complete reconstructions can be suggested in the places with unsatisfactory tree structure component and especially with a high proportion of maple ash. For more information see Summary at the end of the article. Klíčova slova: větrolamy; dřevinná skladba; zdravotní stav; funkčnost


ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of interest groups in the regulation of the European audit market, clarifying patterns of business influence in European Union policy-making. Building on recent innovations in measuring policy preferences, the conditions are analyzed under which interest groups were most successful in attaining their preferences during the policy-making process. Existing methods for measuring interest group influence are refined by disaggregating the unit of analysis from the level of a unitary policy dimension to distinct issues featured in a single legislation and by differentiating between large firms and SMEs rather than assuming homogenous business interests. The results indicate that issue dynamics are central factors in determining interest group success: while larger coalitions seem to be more advantageous to large firms compared to SMEs and public authorities, high issue salience decreases the success of large business.


To elucidate the pathogenesis of angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy-like T cell lymphoma (AILD-T) we investigated the T cell receptor Vβ gene repertoires of four AILD-Ts and compared them with those of other histological types of lymphomas and three cases with reactive disorders. All lymphoma patients had rearrangement bands detected by Southern blot analysis. Only 1 of the 4 cases of AILD-T showed a single predominant usage of Vβ 20 gene by PCR with 20 different Vβ specific primers and the others had repertoires somewhat restricted but similar to reactive lesions. Subsequent sequencing of this PCR product revealed that only 2 of 7 clones were identical. These results suggest the monoclonal malignant cells in AILD-T are scant and that the infiltrating T cells show a reactive pattern. In the only AILD-T case with a single dominant Vβ usage, the relationships of this repertoire and lymphoma cells seems to be of some consequence.


Although femtosecond microjoule Yb-fiber systems are attractive because of a straightforward power scalability, they inherently suffer from a lowered pulse fidelity as a result of complex dispersion and nonlinearity management. Here, we present an integrated Yb-fiber system delivering high-fidelity microjoule pulses compressible down to 160 fs. The system uses a dispersion compensating fiber stretcher that is specially designed to match the dispersion of a 1480 lines/mm grating compressor. Performance analysis suggests the further possibility of scaling the pulse energy to tens of microjoules without pulse quality deterioration using this dispersion management scheme.


Objectives Whether epidural analgesia affects cancer outcomes remains controversial. Most previous investigations ignored the confounding potential of important pathological factors on cancer outcomes. This study aimed to assess the association between epidural analgesia and cancer recurrence or death after resections for colon cancer. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting A single-medical centre in Taiwan. Participants Patients with stage I through III colon cancer undergoing bowel resection and receiving either epidural analgesia or intravenous opioid analgesia from 2005 to 2014. Primary and secondary outcome measures Primary outcome was postoperative recurrence-free survival and secondary outcome was overall survival. Results A total of 2748 and 1218 patients were analysed before and after propensity score matching. Cox regression analyses did not demonstrate any association between epidural analgesia and recurrence or death after matching (HR 0.89, 95% CI 0.65 to 1.21 for recurrence; 0.72, 95% CI 0.48 to 1.09 for death). Independent prognostic factors for cancer recurrence and death were higher level of preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen, perioperative blood transfusion, advanced cancer stage and pathological lymphovascular invasion. Conclusions No definite association was found between epidural analgesia and risk of recurrence or death in patients undergoing colon cancer resection.


A single, nonlethal dose of actinomycin D will cause total regression and cure of Ridgway osteogenic sarcoma in mice. A cure is not obtained with a single dose daily for 7 days, a dose regimen which kills 10% of normal C57BL/6 x DBA/2 mice. This suggests that actinomycin D is more effective on a single high-dose schedule than on chronic daily therapy. Analysis of drug exposure in Ridgway osteo genic sarcoma and normal mouse tissues following the single and multiple-dose regimens suggests the difference in therapeutic response is due to drug exposure at a higher concentration in Ridgway osteogenic sarcoma after the single high dose than after the multiple-dose regimen. This may be related to the higher drug concentration attained in blood following the single-dose regimen than is attained with the multidose regimen.


Treatment of acute infectious gastroenteritis consists mainly of rehydration and rapid realimentation. However, the natural intestinal microflora is disrupted in both acute and chronic infectious diarrhea, resulting in complex interactions possibly aggravating this frequently self-limiting condition. Therefore, additional therapeutic intervention with biotherapeutic agents is worth considering. The results of most randomized prospective double-blind clinical trials with bacterial biotherapeutic agents are disappointing, showing a lack of efficacy, except for Lactobacillus casei strain GG, for which both positive and negative results have been published.


Water vapor transport has been highlighted as a critical process in Arctic snowpacks, shaping the snow cover structure in terms of density, thermal conductivity, and temperature profile among others. Here, we present an attempt to describe the thermally-induced vertical diffusion of water vapor in the snow cover and its effects of the snowpack structure using the SNOWPACK model. Convection, that may also constitute a significant part of vapor transport, is not addressed. Assuming saturated conditions at the upper boundary of the snowpack and as initial condition, the vapor flux between snow layers is expressed by a 1-dimensional transient diffusion equation, which is solved with a finite difference routine. The implications on the snowpack of this vertical diffusive flux, are analyzed using metrics such as the cumulative density change due to diffusive vapor transport, the degree of over- or undersaturation, the instantaneous snow density change rate, and the percentage of snow density change. We present results for four different regions sampling the space of natural snow cover variability: Alpine, Subarctic, Arctic, and Antarctic sea ice. The largest impact of diffusive water vapor transport is observed in snow on sea ice in the Weddell Sea and the shallow Arctic snowpack. The simulations show significant density reductions upon inclusion of diffusive water vapor transport: cumulative density changes from diffusive vapor transport can reach −62 and −66 kg m−3 for the bottom layer in the shallow Arctic snowpack and snow on sea ice, respectively. For comparison, in deeper snow covers, they rarely exceed −40 kg m−3. This leads to changes in density for shallow snowpacks at the soil-snow interface in the range of −5 to −21%. Mirroring the density decease at depth is a thicker deposition layer above it with increase in density around 7.5%. Similarly, for the sea ice, the density decreased at the sea ice-snow interface by −20%. We acknowledge that vapor transport by diffusion may in some snow covers—such as in thin tundra snow—be small compared to convective transport, which will have to be addressed in future work.


This article describes two novel contexts for language and memory stimulation in individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD): student-supervised physical exercise and partnered volunteering at community agencies. Information presented is based on 5 years of the authors' experiences at the University of Arizona supervising student-administered interventions with mildly to moderately affected home-dwelling AD patients in the Volunteers in Partnership and Elder Rehab programs. The authors report significant mood and fitness improvements by program participants, as measured on direct testing as well as by caregiver perceptions regarding the relative benefits of the four program components. Finally, they advocate for greater use of nontraditional approaches and utilizing students and volunteers when working with persons who have AD.


On page
 1594, researchers unveil the workings of YopJ, one of a group of nefarious proteins that
 Yersinia
 bacteria--including
 Y. pestis, the bacterium that is infamous for causing the bubonic plague--deploy. Early in the disease,
 Yersinia
 bacteria inject YopJ into macrophage cells of the immune system, where, the researchers have now found, YopJ acts like scissors, cleaving the macrophage proteins that would normally send an SOS to other immune cells for help. Leaving the macrophage stranded clears the way for other
 Yersinia
 proteins to destroy the cell.


Protective
coatings applied to cathodes help to overcome interface stability issues and
extend the cycle life of Li-ion batteries. However, within 3D cathode
composites it is difficult to isolate the effect of the coating because of the
additives and non-ideal interfaces. In this study we investigate niobium oxide
(NbOx) as cathode coating in a thin-film model system, which provides
simple access to the cathode-coating-electrolyte interface. The conformal NbOx
coating was applied by atomic layer deposition (ALD) onto thin-film LiCoO2
cathodes. The cathode/coating stacks were annealed to lithiate the NbOx
and ensure sufficient ionic conductivity. A range of different coating
thicknesses were investigated to improve the electrochemical cycling with
respect to the uncoated cathode. At a NbOx thickness of 30 nm, the
cells retained 80% of the initial capacity after 493 cycles at 10 C, more than
doubling the cycle life of the uncoated cathode film. At the same thickness, the
coating also showed a positive impact on the rate performance of the cathode: 47%
of the initial capacity was accessible even at ultrahigh charge-discharge rates
of 100 C. Using impedance spectroscopy measurements, we found that the enhanced
performance is due to suppressed interfacial resistance growth during cycling.
Elemental analysis using TOF-SIMS and XPS further revealed a bulk and surface
contribution of the NbOx coating. These results show that in situ
lithiated ALD NbOx can significantly improve the performance of
layered oxide cathodes by enhancing interfacial charge transfer and inhibiting surface
degradation of the cathode, resulting in better rate performance and cycle
life.


Adult human bone marrow and peripheral blood contain diverse stem and progenitor cells with some properties resembling those of embryonic stem cells, as this has been revealed by an increasing body of evidence within the near past. Numerous in vitro experiments and subsequent animal studies have already demonstrated that these adult progenitor cells considerably contribute to the regeneration of ischemic or injured tissue. Over the last 4 years, several clinical studies employing such a hypothesis in the context of myocardial repair after acute infarction or during chronic ischemic heart disease have been published. These studies have used autologous bone marrow- as well as peripheral blood-derived progenitor cells, which were delivered via intracoronary or intramyocardial routes near the ischemic area. The initial results demonstrated the safety and possible benefit of this strategy, which appears to be relatively inexpensive and free of side effects. However, the present clinical studies were small in size so that the overall therapeutic efficacy remains open to debate and evaluation. Furthermore, a major part of the underlying repair mechanisms has been proposed but not yet elaborated. Hence, larger case-controlled, randomized and double-blinded trials in addition to experimental investigations on the primary molecular mechanisms of myocardial repair are crucial for the future.


The method chosen for this collaborative study is a modification of the AOAC method for As residues, 41.009-41.012. The tissue is dry-ashed overnight at 500 degrees C, and then dissolved in dilute HCl. The solution is diluted and an aliquot is reacted with zinc metal to evolve arsine gas. The gas is trapped in AgDDC solution and As is quantitated at 540 nm. Nine collaborating laboratories performed single analyses on 4 blind duplicate pairs of bovine liver samples which were spiked at 0, 4.3, 10.8, or 21.6 mg As/kg liver. A National Bureau of Standards control (SRM 1566 Oyster Tissue, 13.4 +/- 1.9 mg As/kg) and a 1000 mg As/L standard were also submitted to the collaborators. Intralaboratory coefficients of variation ranged from 7.7 to 17.8%; interlaboratory coefficients of variation ranged from 10.9 to 19.0%. The method has been adopted official first action.


Incomplete MaxSAT solving aims to quickly find a solution that attempts to minimize the sum of the weights of unsatisfied soft clauses without providing any optimality guarantees. In this paper, we propose two approximation strategies for improving incomplete weighted MaxSAT solving. In one of the strategies, we cluster the weights and approximate them with a representative weight. In another strategy, we break up the problem of minimizing the sum of weights of unsatisfiable clauses into multiple minimization subproblems. We have implemented these strategies in a tool Open-WBO-Inc. Using the subproblem minimization strategy, Open-WBO-Inc placed first and second in the weighted incomplete tracks in the MaxSAT Evaluation 2018 whereas the strategy based on weight approximation was placed fourth. We compare these strategies with the best incomplete MaxSAT solvers on benchmarks taken from MaxSAT Evaluation 2017 and MaxSAT Evaluation 2018 and show that the strategies proposed are competitive with the best of the solvers.


The management of shared hardware resources in multi-core platforms has been characterized by a fundamental trade-off: high-performance arbiters typically employed in COTS systems offer no worst-case guarantees, while dedicated real-time controllers provide timing guarantees at the cost of significantly degrading system performance. In this paper, we overcome this trade-off by introducing Duetto, a novel hardware resource management paradigm. Duetto pairs a real-time arbiter with a high-performance arbiter and a latency estimator module. Based on the observation that the resource is rarely overloaded, Duetto executes the high-performance arbiter most of the time, switching to the real-time arbiter only in the rare cases when the latency estimator deems that timing guarantees risk being violated. We demonstrate our approach on the case study of a multi-bank memory. Our evaluation based on cycle-accurate simulations shows that Duetto can provide the same latency guarantees as the real-time arbiter with limited loss of performance compared to the high-performance arbiter.